The present invention relates to a snare wire and a snare drum.
A snare wire includes snares and a pair of attachment tools fixed to opposite end sections of the snares. The snare wire is attached to a snare drum using a strap or a cord caught by the attachment tools. The snare wire is supported in a manner switchable selectively between a position at which the snare wire contacts a lower drum head and a position at which the snare wire is spaced from the drum head. When the snare drum is played, the snare wire is switched to the position at which the snare wire contacts the drum head. In this state, when an upper drum head is struck, the snare wire vibrates and produces sound specific to the snare drum. In this case, to further resonate the sound specific to the snare drum, it is desirable that the entire portions of the snares tightly contact the lower drum head.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 8-54874 and 2003-271129 each disclose a snare wire attached to a snare drum using a strap. The snare wire disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 8-54874 includes a plate-like attachment tool curved near the middle as a configuration for causing snares to tightly contact a drum head. The attachment tool has a front plate portion to which the snares are welded and a rear plate portion including an elongated hole through which the strap is passed. The attachment tool also has a catching portion that catches the strap at the position corresponding to the position of the elongated hole, through which the strap is passed. The catching portion is configured by a projection having a substantially U-shaped cross section and projects to the side opposite to the surface to which the snares are welded. In this configuration, when the strap caught by the catching portion is pulled, the strap presses the rear plate portion downward. This rotates the attachment tool as a whole and moves the front plate portion upward toward the drum head. The snares, which are welded to the front plate portion, are thus pressed against the drum head.
Like this snare wire, the snare wire disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-271129 includes a plate-like attachment tool curved near the middle. This attachment tool has a projection on a rear plate portion to which a strap is fixed as a configuration for causing snares to tightly contact a drum head. The projection projects to the same side as the surface to which the snares are welded. The projection is adapted to adjust the height of the rear plate portion of the attachment tool to the height equal to the height of a front plate portion to which the snares are welded such that the thickness of the front plate portion is increased. In this configuration, when the strap fixed to the rear plate portion of the attachment tool is pulled, the projection of the rear plate portion contacts the drum head, thus stopping the front plate portion from being lifted from the drum head. This causes the snares, which are welded to the front plate portion, to tightly contact the drum head.
However, in the invention disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 8-54874, the force by which the strap presses the rear plate portion is small and the force that rotates the attachment tool is correspondingly small when the strap caught by the catching portion is pulled. This hampers reliable pressing of the entire portions of the snares, which are welded to the front plate portion, against the drum head. Also, in the invention disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-271129, the front plate portion of the attachment tool is simply caused to contact the drum head and cannot be reliably pressed against the drum head. Therefore, in the configurations of the snare wires disclosed in the two aforementioned documents, the end sections of the snares, which are welded to the front plate portion, are easily lifted from the drum head compared to the sections of the snares closer to the center of the drum head. This hampers tight contact between the end sections of the snares and the drum head, thus hampering tight contact between the entire portions of the snares and the drum head.